Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5

The Columbia label lists the forces as eight cellos and a double bass, with Leonard Rose as solo cello and Villa-⁠Lobos conducting. According to Amancio Cueto Jr., the accompanying cellos play pizzicato.

The soprano sings the opening melody on a vowel, without words, and the leading cellist plays the same line. Simon Wright described the principal cello as doubling the voice throughout. The record label names Leonard Rose as solo cellist.

The words are by Ruth Valadares Corrêa. Simon Wright writes that the published text was substituted in haste after Villa-⁠Lobos learned that his first choice, a poem by a minor Brazilian poet, could not be used because of copyright.

The middle section sets Ruth Valadares Corrêa’s poem, which begins “Tarde, uma nuvem rósea lenta e transparente” (afternoon, a rosy cloud, slow and transparent). Amancio Cueto Jr. described it as sung in the manner of a recitative.

Columbia issued the Ária on one 12-inch disc, with the sides labelled “Beginning” and “Conclusion”. The second side starts here, after a short break in the sound.

Bidú Sayão sang the Ária at the World’s Fair Hall in New York on 4 May 1939, with the New York Philharmonic under Walter Burle Marx. The Museu Villa-⁠Lobos lists this as the first performance in the United States. Ruth Valadares Corrêa had given the first performance in Rio on 25 March.

At the end of the movement the opening melody returns, hummed with the mouth closed (bocca chiusa), as Amancio Cueto Jr. describes it. Simon Wright describes the soprano as returning to “semi-conscious contemplation” after the declamation of the middle section.

Villa-⁠Lobos dedicated the work to Arminda Neves d’Almeida. He added the second movement, the Dansa (Martelo), in 1945. The Columbia disc carries only the Ária.